1.
16th century
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The 16th century begins with the Julian year 1500 and ends with either the Julian or the Gregorian year 1600. It is regarded by historians as the century in which the rise of the West occurred, during the 16th century, Spain and Portugal explored the worlds seas and opened worldwide oceanic trade routes. In Europe, the Protestant Reformation gave a blow to the authority of the papacy. European politics became dominated by conflicts, with the groundwork for the epochal Thirty Years War being laid towards the end of the century. In Italy, Luca Pacioli published the first work ever on accounting, in United Kingdom, the Italian Alberico Gentili wrote the first book on public international law and divided secularism from canon law and Roman Catholic theology. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand, with the Sultan taking the title of Caliph, China evacuated the coastal areas, because of Japanese piracy. Japan was suffering a civil war at the time. Mughal Emperor Akbar extended the power of the Mughal Empire to cover most of the South Asian sub continent and his rule significantly influenced arts, and culture in the region. These events directly challenged the notion of an immutable universe supported by Ptolemy and Aristotle. Polybius The Histories translated into Italian, English, German and French, medallion rug, variant Star Ushak style, Anatolia, is made. It is now kept at The Saint Louis Art Museum,1500, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain was born. 1500, Guru Nanak the beginning and spreading of the 5th largest Religion in the World Sikhism,1500, Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón encounters Brazil but is prevented from claiming it by the Treaty of Tordesillas. 1500, Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral claims Brazil for Portugal,1500, The Ottoman fleet of Kemal Reis defeats the Venetians at the Second Battle of Lepanto. 1501, Michelangelo returns to his native Florence to begin work on the statue David,1501, Safavid dynasty reunified Iran and ruled over it until 1736. Safavids adopt a Shia branch of Islam,1502, First reported African slaves in The New World 1503, Foundation of the Sultanate of Sennar by Amara Dunqas, in what is modern Sudan 1503, Spain defeats France at the Battle of Cerignola. Considered to be the first battle in history won by gunpowder small arms,1503, Leonardo da Vinci begins painting the Mona Lisa and completes it three years later. 1503, Nostradamus was born on either December 14, or December 21,1504, A period of drought, with famine in all of Spain. 1504, Death of Isabella I of Castile, Joanna of Castille became the Queen,1505, Zhengde Emperor ascended the throne of Ming Dynasty

2.
17th century
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The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1,1601, to December 31,1700, in the Gregorian calendar. The greatest military conflicts were the Thirty Years War, the Great Turkish War, in the Islamic world, the Ottoman, Safavid Persian and Mughal empires grew in strength. In Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu established the Edo period at the beginning of the century, European politics were dominated by the Kingdom of France of Louis XIV, where royal power was solidified domestically in the civil war of the Fronde. With domestic peace assured, Louis XIV caused the borders of France to be expanded and it was during this century that English monarch became a symbolic figurehead and Parliament was the dominant force in government – a contrast to most of Europe, in particular France. It was also a period of development of culture in general,1600, On February 17 Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake by the Inquisition. 1600, Michael the Brave unifies the three Romanian countries, Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania after the Battle of Șelimbăr from 1599. 1601, Battle of Kinsale, England defeats Irish and Spanish forces at the town of Kinsale, driving the Gaelic aristocracy out of Ireland and destroying the Gaelic clan system. 1601, Michael the Brave, voivode of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, is assassinated by the order of the Habsburg general Giorgio Basta at Câmpia Turzii, 1601–1603, The Russian famine of 1601–1603 kills perhaps one-third of Russia. 1601, Panembahan Senopati, first king of Mataram, dies and passes rule to his son Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak 1601,1602, Matteo Ricci produces the Map of the Myriad Countries of the World, a world map that will be used throughout East Asia for centuries. 1602, The Portuguese send an expeditionary force from Malacca which succeeded in reimposing a degree of Portuguese control. 1602, The Dutch East India Company is established by merging competing Dutch trading companies and its success contributes to the Dutch Golden Age. 1602, Two emissaries from the Aceh Sultanate visit the Dutch Republic,1603, Elizabeth I of England dies and is succeeded by her cousin King James VI of Scotland, uniting the crowns of Scotland and England. 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu takes the title of Shogun, establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate and this begins the Edo period, which will last until 1869. 1603–1623, After modernizing his army, Abbas I expands the Persian Empire by capturing territory from the Ottomans,1603, First permanent Dutch trading post is established in Banten, West Java. First successful VOC privateering raid on a Portuguese ship,1604, A second English East India Company voyage commanded by Sir Henry Middleton reaches Ternate, Tidore, Ambon and Banda. 1605, Gunpowder Plot failed in England,1605, The fortresses of Veszprém and Visegrad are retaken by the Ottomans. 1605, February, The VOC in alliance with Hitu prepare to attack a Portuguese fort in Ambon,1605, Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak of Mataram establishes control over Demak, former center of the Demak Sultanate. 1606, Treaty of Vienna ends anti-Habsburg uprising in Royal Hungary,1606, Assassination of Stephen Bocskay of Transylvania

3.
Turin
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Turin is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region and was the first capital city of Italy. The city is located mainly on the bank of the Po River, in front of Susa Valley and surrounded by the western Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 892,649 while the population of the area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million, in 1997 a part of the historical center of Torino was inscribed in the World Heritage List under the name Residences of the Royal House of Savoy. Turin is well known for its Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classical, many of Turins public squares, castles, gardens and elegant palazzi such as Palazzo Madama, were built between the 16th and 18th centuries. This was after the capital of the Duchy of Savoy was moved to Turin from Chambery as part of the urban expansion, the city used to be a major European political center. Turin was Italys first capital city in 1861 and home to the House of Savoy, from 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the Royal House of Savoy and finally the first capital of the unified Italy. Turin is sometimes called the cradle of Italian liberty for having been the birthplace and home of notable politicians and people who contributed to the Risorgimento, such as Cavour. The city currently hosts some of Italys best universities, colleges, academies, lycea and gymnasia, such as the University of Turin, founded in the 15th century, in addition, the city is home to museums such as the Museo Egizio and the Mole Antonelliana. Turins attractions make it one of the worlds top 250 tourist destinations, Turin is ranked third in Italy, after Milan and Rome, for economic strength. With a GDP of $58 billion, Turin is the worlds 78th richest city by purchasing power, as of 2010, the city has been ranked by GaWC as a Gamma World city. Turin is also home to much of the Italian automotive industry, the Taurini were an ancient Celto-Ligurian Alpine people, who occupied the upper valley of the Po River, in the center of modern Piedmont. In 218 BC, they were attacked by Hannibal as he was allied with their long-standing enemies, the Taurini chief town was captured by Hannibals forces after a three-day siege. As a people they are mentioned in history. It is believed that a Roman colony was established in 27 BC under the name of Castra Taurinorum, both Livy and Strabo mention the Taurinis country as including one of the passes of the Alps, which points to a wider use of the name in earlier times. In the 1st century BC, the Romans created a military camp, the typical Roman street grid can still be seen in the modern city, especially in the neighborhood known as the Quadrilatero Romano. Via Garibaldi traces the path of the Roman citys decumanus which began at the Porta Decumani. The Porta Palatina, on the side of the current city centre, is still preserved in a park near the Cathedral

4.
Carlo Dolci
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Carlo Dolci was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Florence, known for highly finished religious pictures, often repeated in many versions. He was born in Florence, on his mothers side the grandson of a painter, although he was precocious and apprenticed at a young age to Jacopo Vignali, Dolci was not prolific. He would take weeks over a foot, according to his biographer Baldinucci. His painstaking technique made him unsuited for large-scale fresco painting and he painted chiefly sacred subjects, and his works are generally small in scale, although he made a few life-size pictures. He often repeated the same composition in several versions, and his daughter, Agnese Dolci, Dolci was known for his piety. It is said every year during Passion Week he painted a half-figure of the Savior wearing the Crown of Thorns. In 1682, when he saw Giordano, nicknamed fa presto, paint more in five hours than he could have completed in months, dolcis daughter, Agnese, was also a painter. Dolci died in Florence in 1686, the grand manner, vigorous coloration or luminosity, and dynamic emotion of the Bolognese-Roman Baroque are foreign to Dolci and to Baroque Florence. Wittkower describes him as the Florentine counterpart, in terms of devotional imagery, pilkington declared his touch inexpressibly neat. He completed his portrait of Fra Ainolfo de Bardi, when he was only sixteen and he also painted a large altarpiece for the church of Sant Andrea Cennano in Montevarchi. As was typical for Florentine painters, this was a painting about painting, penguin Books, Pelican History of Art. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh

5.
18th century
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The 18th century lasted from January 1,1701 to December 31,1800 in the Gregorian calendar. During the 18th century, the Enlightenment culminated in the French, philosophy and science increased in prominence. Philosophers dreamed of a brighter age and this dream turned into a reality with the French Revolution of 1789-, though later compromised by the excesses of the Reign of Terror under Maximilien Robespierre. At first, many monarchies of Europe embraced Enlightenment ideals, but with the French Revolution they feared losing their power, the Ottoman Empire experienced an unprecedented period of peace and economic expansion, taking part in no European wars from 1740 to 1768. The 18th century also marked the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as an independent state, the once-powerful and vast kingdom, which had once conquered Moscow and defeated great Ottoman armies, collapsed under numerous invasions. European colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world intensified and associated mass migrations of people grew in size as the Age of Sail continued. Great Britain became a major power worldwide with the defeat of France in North America in the 1760s, however, Britain lost many of its North American colonies after the American Revolution, which resulted in the formation of the newly independent United States of America. The Industrial Revolution started in Britain in the 1770s with the production of the steam engine. Despite its modest beginnings in the 18th century, steam-powered machinery would radically change human society, western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. To historians who expand the century to include larger historical movements, 1700-1721, Great Northern War between Tsarist Russia and the Swedish Empire. 1701, Kingdom of Prussia declared under King Frederick I,1701, Ashanti Empire is formed under Osei Kofi Tutu I. 1701–1714, The War of the Spanish Succession is fought, involving most of continental Europe, 1701–1702, The Daily Courant and The Norwich Post become the first daily newspapers in England. 1702, Forty-seven Ronin attack Kira Yoshinaka and then commit seppuku in Japan,1703, Saint Petersburg is founded by Peter the Great, it is the Russian capital until 1918. 1703–1711, The Rákóczi Uprising against the Habsburg Monarchy,1704, End of Japans Genroku period. 1704, First Javanese War of Succession,1705, George Frideric Handels first opera, Almira, premieres. 1706, War of the Spanish Succession, French troops defeated at the Battles of Ramilies,1706, The first English-language edition of the Arabian Nights is published. 1707, The Act of Union is passed, merging the Scottish and English Parliaments,1707, After Aurangzebs death, the Mughal Empire enters a long decline and the Maratha Empire slowly replaces it. 1707, Mount Fuji erupts in Japan for the first time since 1700,1707, War of 27 Years between the Marathas and Mughals ends in India

6.
Carlo Cesare Malvasia
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Carlo Cesare Malvasia was an Italian scholar and art historian from Bologna, best known for his biographies of Baroque artists titled Felsina pittrice, published in 1678. Malvasia is the Bolognese equivalent of Giorgio Vasari, and saw his native city surpassing Florence in the supremacy of his time. Born to a family, he is also known as Count Carlo Malvasia. He received cursory training in painting under Giacinto Campana and Giacomo Cavedone and he also was an amateur poet and participated in local literary circles. He traveled to Rome in 1639 where he met Cardinal Bernardino Spada, records indicate he spent some time as a volunteer cavalier during the First War of Castro at the urging of his cousin Cornelio Malvasia, leader of the Papal Army cavalry. Thereafter he graduated as a lawyer, and lectured on the subject at the university in Bologna and he obtained a theology degree in 1653, and was appointed a canon in Bologna Cathedral in 1662. Malvasia was also a collector and acted as an agent for Louis XIV in acquisition of Bolognese artworks for the royal collections. Malvasia also published Le pitture di Bologna, a companion gallery guide of works by the artists discussed in the Felsina pittrice, and Marmorea felsine, luigi Crespi with contributions by Marco Pagliarini, ed. Felsina pittrice, vite de pittori bolognesi. Stamperia di Marco Pagliarini, Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on February 7,2007, malvasias Life of the Carracci, Commentary and Translation. University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State University Press, review, Carlo Cesare Malvasia, The Life of Guido Reni by Catherine Enggass, Robert Enggass, The Burlington Magazine, vol

7.
Anne Gonzaga
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Anne Gonzaga was an Italian French noblewoman and salonist. She bore Edward three children, all daughters, had Anne not converted Edward to Catholicism, the English throne might have passed to their descendants. Anne Marie de Gonzague was born in Paris into a cadet French branch of the ducal House of Gonzaga, which ruled Mantua in northern Italy. The Nevers branch later came to rule Mantua again after the War of the Mantuan Succession, triggered in part by her Parisian-born fathers claim to the duchies of Mantua and Montferrat. With the promised support of the French crown, which preferred a French peer to rule Mantua, Charles arrived there in January 1628. Although her name and patriline was Mantuan, Anne de Gonzague was born and she probably remained in France even after her fathers reclamation of the ancestral city of Mantua, considering the town was in ruin by 1630. Anne was the youngest of the Duke and Duchess of Mantuas six children and she had three brothers, including Charles II Gonzaga, and two sisters, the elder of whom became Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga of Poland. Her French mother, Catherine de Mayenne, died in 1618, originally her family planned for her to become a nun, but her fathers death in 1637 relieved her of this obligation and thereafter Anne carried out an adventurous life. She fell passionately in love with her second cousin Henry II, Duke of Guise, later, she claimed to have contracted a secret marriage with him in 1639. In 1640, Anne disguised herself as a man to him in Sedan. She brought a lawsuit against him, demanding recognition as his wife, on 24 April 1645 in Paris, Anne was married, without much enthusiasm, to Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern, a nineteen-year-old, landless and penniless German nobleman who was nine years her junior. She became Countess Palatine of Simmern, and was known in German as Pfalzgräfin Anne and in English as Anne, according to the Italian historian Signor G. B. Intra, Anne “held one of the most brilliant salons during the years of the reign of Louis XIV. Her sister, the Polish queen Marie Louise Gonzaga, had designated Anne Henriette as her heir and was committed to supporting the candidature of the Duke of Enghien for the Polish throne. Princess Anne managed to marry her youngest daughter, Bénédicte, to the Duke of Brunswick, the Princess Palatine was a confidante of Philippe dOrléans, whose second marriage she helped orchestrate. Annes mother was a member of the ultra-Catholic Guise family, and Anne appears to have been devoted to the religion. Besides being illegitimately descended from a pope, she was the granddaughter of Charles de Guise, head of the Catholic League of France, Anne managed to convert her Calvinist husband to Catholicism despite his mother, Elizabeth Stuarts threats to disown any of her children who became Catholic. In 1663, Edward died in Paris aged 37, sophia was never declared heiress presumptive to Scotland

8.
Bernardo Cavallino
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Bernardo Cavallino was an Italian painter and draughtsman active in Naples. Born in Naples, he is thought to have died during the epidemic in 1656. Little is known about his background or training, of eighty attributed paintings, less than ten are signed. He worked through private dealers and collectors whose records are no longer available, most of Cavallinos works are on the scale of cabinet paintings, and he is not known to have executed any large decorations. The art historian Ann Percy describes him as the most individual, uniting a refinement and virtuosity of brushwork with an intensely naturalistic observation of surfaces, and complex and dramatic compositions with an extraordinary brilliance of palette. One of his masterpieces is the billowing proletarian Blessed Virgin at the Brera Gallery in Milan, passive amid the swirling, muscular putti, this Neapolitan signorina delicately rises from the fog, the updated Catholic baroque equivalent of a Botticellis Venus. His The Ecstasy of St Cecilia exists both as cartoon and final copy in the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence. Finally, his Esther and Ahasuerus hangs in the Uffizi Gallery.5 cm x 70.0 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia De Dominici, vite dei Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti Napolitani, Volume III. Stamperia del Ricciardi, Naples, Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on February 1,2007, on Seicento Painting in Naples, Some Observations on Bernardo Cavallino, Artemisia Gentileschi and Others, Józef Grabski

9.
Pierfrancesco Cittadini
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Pierfrancesco Cittadini was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Bologna and painting lush and rich still lifes. He travelled to Rome in the mid-1640s and came into contact with the French and this international melting pot gave rise to an original artistic vocabulary aimed at the naturalistic depiction of reality in a vast number of still lifes, landscapes and portraits. He also painted frescoes for the Ducal Palace of Sassuolo. Domenico Sedini, Pier Francesco Cittadini, online catalogue Artgate by Fondazione Cariplo,2010, CC BY-SA Farquhar, ralph Nicholson Wornum, ed. Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters. Woodfall & Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London, media related to Pier Francesco Cittadini at Wikimedia Commons Musee-Fesch site

10.
Battista Antonelli
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Battista Antonelli was a military engineer from a prestigious Italian family of military engineers in the service of the Habsburg monarchs of Austria and Spain. Antonelli was born in Gatteo in Romagna, and entered the service of Philip II of Spain in 1570, working with his brother on projects in Oran, Algeria. In 1581 Antonelli was commissioned by the king to build a fortress along the Straits of Magellan, the project, under the command of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and Diego Flores Valdez, was a complete failure, founding a short-lived settlement named Rey Don Felipe, without any fortifications. Antonelli returned to Spain, ill and disillusioned and he was convinced, however, to take a second commission in 1586 to build fortifications for the city of Cartagena in Colombia. Using the latest military technology of the time, he designed the citys renowned defenses, the San Felipe de Barajas Castle, the San Sebastián de Pastelillo Fort, Antonelli then sailed for Panama where he recommended the abandonment of Nombre de Dios in favor of Portobelo. At Panama la Vieja at the Pacific coast he developed a plan for a fortification of the town and he then set sail for Havana. In Havana he designed the fortifications which culminate at the fortress of El Morro, from there he returned to Spain. After several more journeys to the Caribbean, Antonelli settled in Spain, working on fortresses in Gibraltar and he died in Spain in 1616 after having one of the most illustrious careers in military architecture in the New World. His brother Giovanni Battista Antonelli was also an engineer, born in Italy at Gatteo in Romagna. His most important works were a series of watchtowers along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Spain, anne W. Tennant Arquitecto de las defensas del rey, Américas, pp. 6–15. Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, eds

11.
Giacomo Castelvetro
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Giacomo Castelvetro was an Italian refugee, humanist, teacher and travel writer. Giacomo Castelvetro was born in Modena in 1546 to the banker Niccolò Castelvetro, not much is known of his early life. He was smuggled out of Modena with his brother when he was eighteen years old. He stayed in Geneva with his uncle, the humanist critic and he traveled widely for several years, living in the towns of Lyon, Basel, Vienna and Chiavenna before his uncle died. In 1587 in Basel he married Isotta de Canonici, the widow of Thomas Erastus and he died impoverished on 21 March 1616 after a long illness. Having become a Protestant he feared for his life when he returned to Italy in 1578 after the death of his father and he swiftly went to England in 1580 after selling his property. From 1598 he settled in Venice and it was there that his brother Lelio was burnt at the stake as a heretic in 1609. He went back to England to escape the furious bite of the cruel, in 1574 he befriended Sir Roger North of Kirtling on a 1574 visit to England and accompanied his son John on an educational tour in Italy. He was known to travel frequently to Europe after settling in England and he attended the renowned book fairs at Basel and Frankfurt. In 1594 after his wife died he travelled to Denmark and then Sweden, in Sweden he acquainted himself with Duke Charles who later became king in 1599. He toured Europe in 1598, visiting France, Switzerland and Germany and he set off on another European tour in search of patronage in 1611 after being freed from the Inquisition. In England he received the patronage of Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Walsingham and he was closely involved with the English embassy in Venice and became friends with Sir Henry Wotton who was ambassador there before Sir Dudley Carleton. In 1592 he was appointed Italian tutor to King James VI of Scotland and he taught Italian at the University of Cambridge for the Spring term in 1613, those he taught included George Stanhope. He is considered to be the most important promoter of the Italian language and heritage after John Florio and he paid for the publishing of Il pastor fido in England in 1591. After settling in Venice in 1598 he edited manuscripts on contemporary Italian poetry, the fruit, herbs & vegetables of Italy He was apparently shocked by the English partiality for meat, lack of green vegetables and sugar-rich diet. Thus he set about writing The fruit, herbs & vegetables of Italy, the manuscript, written in Italian, was circulated amongst supporters. He was, like many Italians, a keen gardener, at the time in which he was writing the British palate was only beginning to absorb culinary flavours from the continent. Aspects of French and Dutch cooking had assimilated into British cooking but eating habits were still centred on the consumption of large quantities of meat, castelvetros enthusiasm for a diverse diet preceded John Evelyns treatise produced in 1699 which equally urged the English to eat more salad vegetables